False identifications based on a terrorist no-fly list have for years prevented some federal air marshals from boarding flights they are assigned to protect, according to officials with the agency, which is finally taking steps to address the problem.

And yet this asshole, and these people, are doing everything they can to apply this list to gun purchases? I guess that’ll mean no guns for the guys in the Air Marshal program then. I guess they’ll just have to use harsh language on the real terrorists.

Based on this article, you would almost think a bottle of Mike’s Hard Lemonade is rat poison:

The Comerica cop estimated that Leo had drunk about 12 ounces of the hard lemonade, which is 5% alcohol. But an ER resident who drew Leo’s blood less than 90 minutes after he and his father were escorted from their seats detected no trace of alcohol.

“Completely normal appearing,” the resident wrote in his report, “… he is cleared to go home.”

But it would be two days before the state of Michigan allowed Ratte’s wife, U-M architecture professor Claire Zimmerman, to take their son home, and nearly a week before Ratte was permitted to move back into his own house.

The father, a Professor of Archeology at the University of Michigan, who doesn’t watch much television, apparently was unaware that it was alcoholic lemonade. Easy mistake to make.

One 12 ounce bottle of hard lemonade isn’t going to hurt a 7 year old. Hell, they used to tell parents to give whiskey to kids to fight teething pain (ask my dad about that one). It was a simple mistake, and a bit of questioning should have revealed that, and that should have been the end of it.

People are often under the mistaken impression that the Philadelphia Zoo is located at 34th and Girard. Those of us who have been to sporting events in the city know that it’s really on South Broad Street, as this visitor from Montreal found out:

My son and I drove from Montreal to catch Monday night’s Flyers-Canadiens playoff game at the Wachovia Center. Your fans have many reasons to be proud of their city and team, but how they treat their guests at a sporting event is not one of them.

As the game progressed, the level of threats and abuse heaped on us grew at an alarming rate. At one point, an unfortunate Habs fan had a glass of beer poured on her head, and her boyfriend thought it best for them to leave the arena. By the end of the game, we and other Habs supporters needed the protection of arena security and police to exit the building.

I can’t imagine what would have happened to us if the Flyers had lost.

Welcome to the jungle. When I attended the Flyers-Capitals game a few weeks ago at the Verizon Center in D.C. (in the VIP booth, w/ free beer and food, sweet!), I was telling Bitter the reputation our fans had. Despite a few beers, I resisted the urge to jump up and start cracking heads when people cheered on the Capitals. I am a poor Philadelphian.

But “gun fatigue” has set in, and it’s unlikely any new gun bills will be brought up in Harrisburg this legislative session.

However, this represents a moment that Nutter could use to his advantage: exploit the political goodwill he has been forging in Harrisburg to help change the conversation about guns and find solutions. Face it: If anything substantial is going to change about the city’s ability to make gun laws, it will require a civil sit-down between Nutter and state leaders – something House Speaker Dennis O’Brien, who once kept gun legislation safely tucked away in the Judiciary Committee he once chaired – told this editorial board he’s willing to do.

Nutter was smart enough to build bridges with Harrisburg before he took office. We believe he’s smart enough to spark a more productive conversation with state lawmakers, and get them to see it’s in their interest to help the city grapple with our gun problem.

We are not passing gun control laws because the City of Philadelphia can’t control it’s crime problem. That’s off the table. Put it out of your minds now. It is not that we don’t care about the city’s problems, it’s that we keep telling you that you can’t fix your problem this way, especially when the city is doing little to enforce the laws they already have. Nutter and City Council are throwing this temper tantrum because they lack the political courage to tell their constituents something they don’t want to hear; that until they get off their asses and start taking responsibility for their communities and neighborhoods, and start working with the police to get rid of the criminals, drug dealers, and gangs, nothing is going to change. And most importantly, Philadelphians need to elect judges who are willing to put these individuals away for a very long time when they are convicted.

We have a lot of guns in this state outside Philadelphia, and we do not have a violence problem. The reason we don’t is that we would not tolerate it in our communities, and we’d hold the politicians and judges feet to the fire until they started dealing with it. Really dealing with it, not pretending to deal with it.

Residents of Philadelphia are being sold a bill of goods by their politicians and by the media, that their problems have an easy solution, and it has to start with gun control. As long as Philadelphia residents are willing to buy that line, and keep electing politicians who peddle that instead of doing something, nothing is going to change in that city.

Take a good long look at this list. They want to ban rifles like the Ruger 10/22 and the Anschutz model 525 Deluxe. Granted, this bill is probably not going anywhere, but it’s a useful exercise to see exactly what these people would get away with if they had the chance.

But we’re all just paranoid nuts I guess. They’ll never ban our guns, right?

Under Bill Clinton’s administration, NICS records were being illegally kept by the FBI. This practice was ended under the Bush administration. Frank Lautenberg, the senator from the state that has pretty much killed lawful gun ownership, wants to let the FBI keep those records for six months. Ten years if you’re on the terrorist watch list.

New Jersey has, for the most part, pretty effectively extinguished the culture of lawful and responsible gun ownership. Most gun shops there have closed, along with most ranges. Criminal gun ownership is still, of course, quite fashionable in the Garden State. California is now heading down the same slippery slope. Hunters and Shooters who don’t think any of this stuff matters, because they “aren’t coming after my gun” need to realize that the shooting sports are an ecosystem, and without the rest of us to keep it healthy, it dies. They don’t need to come after anyone’s gun if there’s nowhere to buy them and nowhere to shoot.